Pro-soviet Newspaperin U.S. Attacks Soviet Anti-semitic Propaganda

April 1, 1965

NEW YORK (Mar. 31)

The Morning Freiheit, the daily Yiddish newspaper which maintains a strong pro-Soviet attitude, sharply criticized today the continuation of anti-Semitic propaganda in the Soviet Union. “It seems that, among the anti-religious propagandists of the Soviet Union, there are many ignorant persons, often among them poisonous anti-Semites,” the paper stated in an editorial.

The Freiheit noted that, earlier this week, the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry published a report about an article in “Zviazda,” of Minsk, largest daily in Byelorussia, which had conjured up canards about alleged Jewish ritual practices, condemned Judaism as a religion that “defends what is rotten and dead,” and charged that American Jewish organizations are headed by such leaders of big business as Guggenheim, Morgenthau, Harriman and Rockefeller. The latter two are not Jews.

The editorial stated that the Freiheit would ignore a report of this nature if there had been indications of trial and punishment of other anti-Semitic authors in the USSR, like Prof. Kitchko who had authored the infamous anti-Semitic work, “Judaism Without Embellishment.”

“The report from Minsk,” stated the editorial, “would not be acceptable to us if we had heard about action against the other ‘anti-religious’ books. To our sorrow, we know from experience that, in the Soviet Union, anti-religious propaganda is often carried out in inept and ignorant fashion. Such propaganda convinces no one. On the contrary, we know of many (Jewish) religious men in America, rabbis and others, who play an outstanding role in the struggle against racism and war. Many religious Jews in the Soviet Union itself showed heroism and martyrdom during the war against Hitler.

“It is high time that such propaganda be stopped,” the pro-Soviet Jewish newspaper urged. “The Soviet Union which has, among its principles, the abolition of all national boundaries, must cleanse itself and halt all anti-religious propaganda of a vulgar and harmful nature. Anti-religious propaganda of that kind only plays into the hands of the cold war elements.”